#11 Yeah so what happened here?

Well, I said I was going to try and keep this blog updated, and guess what! I didn’t! Oops. I guess I’m just no good at this blogging thing. It’s only now where I’m deathly ill I realised how much I’ve neglected this thing.. ehhh!

So what has happened in my, uh, absence? Well, firstly and to actually do with this blog and my “animation”, I got my Uni results and graduated! Somehow I managed to get a 2:1 grade overall even without 1 piece of work, which well, I’m pretty darned happy about. 2:1 for rushed and under-average work by my standard is pretty class. I had a great hat and graduated like every other student normally does, there was a huge ceremony and I looked pompous but it was a nice send-off for the course.

As well as this, life! I moved out from home and into a flat with friends, which is pretty awesome I must say. I’m living with my boyfriend now too which means he kicks me into working and I in return kick him into working, it’s a great non-abusive relationship. Really though – it is great, I live next to town so getting to work is easy.

I’ve been a vegetable and playing games and crap, is that interesting?

Oh and last weekend I was at AyaCon, one of the UK’s biggest conventions for Japanese animation/manga/etc (for weeaboos, basically) and that was pretty fun! I dressed up a lot and it was pretty fun. My next con won’t be til next summer at this rate due to rent etc, but it gives me plenty time to work on costumes I guess.

Is that enough of an update? I guess it’ll have to do for now.

#10 and so, 4 years later

Well, 4 years is a long time! And finally after those 4 years.. I’m actually done with Uni (aside from 1 project, but it’s not as much as the last 3 were, haha)!

The work I finally submitted consisted of my Final Programme of Work (the ‘Hat’ animation), Craft Development (photography/stop-motion software) and finally, Media Marketting & Distribution (festival pack and press pack). They were 3 huge brightly coloured, overflowing files of work, after an all-nighter and weeks of working non-stop. Ughhh, I wish I’d taken a photo of them before I handed in; they were glorious to behold! That and the fact all the hard work actually paid off at last felt awesome, aughhh, done with this course at last.

I’ll probably post more about the project once I’ve been to the Gala, which is on Monday! Actually submitted it in time, wonderful~! I hope it goes down well, or at the very least, doesn’t receive any boo-ing.. I think I’d just curl up and die if that happens, haha.

Finally as part of the Media Marketting & Distribution module I had to make a showreel. The final showreel is up on YouTube!

So what’s up for me now? Well, as well as moving out, RELAXING FOR SUMMERRRRR (and working my ass off at work) I’m going to try my hand with some original projects and also with some animation theory projects I’ve wanted to do for ages but never got ’round to at Uni – should be awesome if I actually do some work on it.

Tags: animation, craft development, hat, life, showreel, university, work

#9 Um what

Wow, so my deadline that’s tomorrow.. isn’t actually tomorrow? AWESOME. Looks like my handin is Friday instead, and if any later I need to get a PEC signed. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but Friday is jolly good.

I’ve got 1 part of my project completed now (Craft Development), so there’s the Final Programme of Work (the animation, craft materials and evaluation) and Media Marketting & Distribution modules to finish. I’m so stressed out. I was working til 5am last night and in work til 3 today, so I’ve been a bit on edge.

I’ve made a list of all the things left to be done – it’s huuuge!! I got some notepads printed with my own design for the Media Marketting module and I’ve been using one of those to sort my workload out, and it takes up 3 pages of one of those.. a lot have been crossed off now but it’s still worrying. I hope I can get everything done for Friday, else I’m just gonna stress myself into a coma or something, the sooner this work is done the better!

Still no progress shots. Saaad. Well, I’ve got some, but I’m just too lazy to upload ‘em. I’ll put them up once my stress is gone! ;P that and photos of things like the notepads I got printed, they’re pretty cute, I should show ‘em off more, nothing wrong with a teeny bit of self-pimping eh?

Tags: animation, craft development, extension, hat, nyaano.net, stress, university, work

#8 So Very Close

I got  an extra extension.. did I write about that here? I forget. Wow. My mind, where is it. It’s all over the place lately.

Thankfully with the extension stuff is ACTUALLY HAPPENING! I’ve revamped how HAT is going to be made, the general style etc so it’ll be easier. I cut the audio tonight – final run time should be about 1:15, so that’s the time I’m submitting for the brochure/handbook, fingers crossed everything works out. I’ll be needing a LOT of frames, but it should pay off nicely if all goes to plan, and might even lead to – gasp – a future outside of Uni?!

…Ok, that’s aiming a bit high, but gotta be positive right?

Positive. Right now I’m sat in my PJs, 2 computers flaring at me, bottle of Cherry Coke at my feet and surrounded by cameras and SD cards.. um. Tonight should be interesting! I wanted my brochure submission in today but I’m running behind (as usual)

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have some pretty little examples to post.. hopefully!! :O

Tags: animation, extension, hat, stress, university, work

#7 More Extensions! …Joy?

Well, as if the title didn’t give it away I didn’t get my work in for the 18th, my deadline. I’ve got a further extension for extenuating circumstances and this time I MUST get things done. I’m simplifying everything to make it more manageable and I’m hoping so much it gets completed.

Thankfully with this and with my previous failed filming experiments I’ve now got enough to complete my Craft Development module with ease, which is readily underway (it was based on using DSLRs with Dragon Stop Motion to create Stop-Motion animation; and well, that didn’t end well, but it’s a report nonetheless).

Fingers crossed these next 2 weeks are better for me than the last few have been.. I want this done so badly and it’s only because of everything coming at once that I’m getting pushed back constantly :’(

Tags: animation, craft development, Dragon Stop Motion, extension, hat, stress, university

#6 More Woes

Wow.. so I splurged the £165 for Dragon and found I can’t even use it. Long story short, everything is against me! Which quite frankly SUCKS. Everything I’ve tried to get this project working has failed.

I’m going to resort to a simpler approach, a friend recommended me to make a Photo Roman/Animatic – screw it, I’ll do a Photo Roman instead. It’s not what I wanted, but it’s better than submitting NOTHING. I just hope I can get it done in time; my deadline is Wednesday, apparently.

I’m at the Uni tomorrow hopefully to discuss my options. Everything is just going wrong, endless stress, etc. I hope my lecturers understand -__-”

Tags: animation, Dragon Stop Motion, extension, hat, stress, university

#5 Laptop Woes

Ok, through the divine intervention of a meeting at Uni today at 2:30pm I’ve had more time today to get some of my animating done! Huzzay! An extra day for filming – great, right? Oh.. wait..

Not so great when my laptop craps out and decides as well as refusing to open Photoshop, it refuses to connect to the internet.. which I kinda sorta need to activate Dragon Stop Motion, the program I need to film this in.. GREAT. It’s bad enough it’s setting me back an unexpected £165, it also won’t work on my laptop and well, there’s nowhere for me to plug in my big fat computer in a park..

I discovered this at 1am yesterday. I was up til 4am trying to sort it. I got up today after 10am and I’m STILL trying to sort it. Finally on my way to reformatting the damn thing, but this has messed up all my filming and taken away the extra day I had to film on. I hope tomorrow is fine, not rainy and not disorganised, cause if it doesn’t all get filmed tomorrow I am royally ‘screwed’.

Nothing is ever easy, is it?

Tags: animation, Dragon Stop Motion, laptop, stress, university

#4 It’s nearly 2am YEAHHH

So what part of ‘I’ve had to get an extension to get my work finished’ don’t people understand?

I’m happy and all that I’m so relied on at work, but this is killing me ;__; I’m staying up til like 3am nights before I’m in work, drawing and finishing puppets til the early hours, then doing shifts, then coming home and doing it again. UGHGHHG I just can’t wait til these are all done; I’m probably gonna cut some corners and miss out major groups of puppets to save time, which means the animation won’t be as good as I first wanted it to be, but it’ll be quicker to get things done and filmed and hopefully it means I can get some SLEEP.

If I can do I’ll get it ready for filming for Wednesday this week, but that’ll be pushing it, I’m out the next two nights and in work all day too. The sooner this animation gets underway with filming the better.. I am so stressed about getting this finished even with a 2-week extension from Uni thanks to a sudden burst of work hours it’s not even funny.

Tags: animation, extension, hat, stress, university

#3 HAT Submission

GOODNESS ME WHAT A STRESSFUL WEEK

My deadline for Uni was meant to be today, but ugh, I’ve been feeling like death for the past week (being in a car crash and getting whiplash doesn’t help.. lol) and it’s been impossible to work on things. The most I’ve got done is the majority of puppets for my Final Programme of Work module and then revamping Nyaano.net, uploading this blog and some text-based pieces for my Media Marketting & Distribution module. Otherwise.. very little filmed, very little finished, lots of stress.

But thankfully due to the divine grace of my course leader and 2 of my lecturers I have an extension for 2 weeks. I AM GONNA WORK LIKE A BOSS.

Speaking of work I’d better book some time off at work, since I’ve been scheduled in a lot lately and it’s thrown a major spanner in my ‘work during the day!!’ plans, being in 12-4 does that. But as long as I get this finished for the 18th I will be over the moon, dancing happy, ecstatic, joyous, etc etc.

Hopefully next time I update I’ll have some actual progress to share, like in-progress shots, some stills, some awesome pieces to display. I’m going to film it outside (how this didn’t occur to me before.. it’s a film set in a forest and I was going to make a forest out of foamboard to suffice when there are perfectly good parks in the world with small plants that’ll be to scale.. um), using Dragon Stop Motion, my Nikon D5000 +35mm+50mm lenses and my poor demented laptop, but as long as it all gets filmed I’ll be HAPPY.

AUGHH I’M JUST SO HAPPY I GOT AN EXTENSION AUHHGHGHGH I’d be screwed otherwise ._.

Tags: animation, extension, hat, stress, university

#2; Nyaano.net

At long last (and by long last I mean nearly two whole years) Nyaano.net, my ‘online portfolio’ has finally been brought back into the present day!

It took a lot of time, effort and patience.. and about 6 attempts at a new layout before I gave in and just used the original one, but tweaked to fit tables instead of an iframe. The old layout was cute but really intrusive, too small, just generally difficult to work with. This new one is as dark.. if not a little darker, actually, but hopefully sets the tone for my work and still stays charming, lol. Or at least.. I hope so!

UGH THOUGH GAH had an awful day getting it finished, I had all besides the ‘works’ and ‘contact’ pages done yesterday, came to do works.. oh crap.. what.. my external HDD with all my animation files from 2006, totally corrupted as I tried to transfer files across. BSOD’d computer, HDD refusing to read, panic panic, my only other copy was on YouTube, no other backups.

One huge panic later and I managed to recover the basics from the HDD, not everything, but at least 1 export of each film I’ve made or worked on at the very least. Which means that at the very least I can put together some kind of showreel for the submission on the 4th, my current one is pretty old and shoddy and desperately needs updating. :\

Anyhow, it’s 2am and I’m in work at 12 tomorrow.. ugh.. a few more nights of this and fingers crossed I’ll get all of my work in on time.-

Tags: animation, nyaano.net, stress, university, website